


Old Haunts

by abvj



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M, Set after 2x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:10:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You forget,</i> she says. <i>I knew you once.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Haunts

“I could do this forever,” Mike tells her once, his mouth between her legs, smile smoothing against her. 

It is foolish, a lie he probably doesn’t realize he is spinning, and she forgives him for it all too easily. Jenny has never been naive, believes firmly and absolutely in right now, not always, and knows forever is a very long time, practically intangible. 

Still, she thought he would try a little harder. 

 

 

 

Jenny learns about his grandmother in the paper over her morning coffee, fingers stained with ink as the pages crinkle between them. She has to read it over twice, her eyes lingering on the _survived by_ line, his name glaring, a taunt, a not-quite dare staring back at her in black in white. 

The tears are first, stinging the back of her eyes as they linger. Jenny blinks them away, her fingers shaking just a little as she smoothes the wrinkles in the paper, tearing the edges around the tiny blurb so she can have it for safekeeping. It will always be something she remembers first about Mike – the side of him he only allowed to shine through around his grandmother, during Sundays in the park or those Tuesday evening dinners they shared before… well, _before._

All too clearly, Jenny remembers the way it was always _Michael,_ never _Mike_ then ,and the way he would smile, soft and affectionate at the sound of it because, Jenny knew, it was something special to him, a reminder of his parents. It was always _Michael,_ never _Mike_ with them too. 

The taste of bile is second, burning and itching at her throat as it rises, takes over. She swallows around it, reaches for her phone and thinks very seriously about calling him, about giving him a piece of her mind because how could he not call her, how could he not let her know? How could she mean so little to him after everything? 

She’s all thumbs as she dials the first few numbers, hesitating at the last set of four. Ultimately, she pulls back, allows the anger to recede into something deeper, something that bites, that carves a roadmap to her greatest failure deep in her bones. 

Breathing deeply, Jenny counts to five backwards and forwards, and allows the indecision to give way to clarity as she places her phone to the side, just out of reach. 

 

 

 

The funeral is that afternoon. 

Jenny goes because it is the right thing to do, not because she wants to see him. Not because she needs to know that he is mostly okay – still breathing, still him in all the ways that count. She lingers in the back, just out of sight, her jacket too restrictive around her shoulders and the soles of her feet aching from standing through most of the service. From a distance, Jenny watches as he tells a story she vaguely remembers, ducking her head when the tears rise and seep around the edges of her eyes. Out of habit, she counts the lines of his face, the tired slump of his shoulders. She sees the grief there, infiltrating the cracks in his armor, knows he is close to drowning in it because she knows him, all of him, always has. She recognizes the warning signs, even now, even after all the distance and time they’ve placed between each other. 

Still, she does not go to him. 

This isn’t about them, or her, or even him. 

Jenny pays her respects silently and leaves shortly thereafter. 

 

 

 

(Mike allowed her to walk out of his life without so much of a fight, and Jenny fucked Trevor in an act of retribution afterwards. 

It wasn’t intentional. She didn’t mean to do it – except, yeah, maybe she did. 

Jenny went to Trevor to fight, to yell, to transfer the anger to somebody who was still there, who would take it. One second Jenny was shoving Trevorhard, her palm connecting against his shoulder, pushing him backwards from both force and surprise, the anger licking at her nerves in a different, almost intoxicating way. She went with it, wanted to bury the betrayal and anger with something that felt good, that hurt in a way she could bend and mold to her will, so he next second, her mouth was smearing against his, her back bending awkwardly against the counter she fucked Mike on that one time, and Trevor was kissing her back. 

It was familiar and foreign all at once, his hands ghosting over her skin, unyielding and unforgiving as they push at the cotton of her shirt, the hem of her skirt, the fabric wrinkling, in complete disarray as it bunched around her waist. Jenny allowed him turn her around, her hands braced for the impact, carrying her weight as he pressed between her legs, slick and warm, rough as he slid into her without remorse. Jenny breathed through it, closed her eyes and worried her lip between her teeth, the copper bitter in her mouth as she came too easily with a cry and somebody else’s name on her lips. 

After, she smoothed her skirt down, redid the buttons on her blouse with perfectly still fingers. Trevor watched her, mouth covered with the remembrances of her lip-gloss, lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes were hard, his own anger simmering just blow the surface – she could see it in the way his hands curled into fists, the way he carried his weight on his heels, bracing for an impact. 

Jenny did not think of Mike. 

She did not think about how even then, even after he removed himself from their lives, he still managed to taint everything in his path. She was wet between her thighs, the sweat clinging to her skin like a glove, and she desperately needed a shower to lick the sex away, to forget. 

“Feel better now?” Trevor spit, a parting shot, and she was hit with the reminder of just how cruel he could be. Her stomach churned, the anger and guilt and utter despair coiling deep within her; she met his eyes, jaw square, hardened. 

“You can see yourself out,” she tells him, pushing past him and towards the bathroom. 

Once inside, she shut the door behind her, leaned against the hard wood of it to hold her up, her feet and legs, boneless and unsteady beneath her. Trevor left quietly, and she closed her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief that rattled her bones. 

 

 

 

In the following days every time she tried to mold her mouth into a smile, her bottom lip split in two, the copper spilling into her mouth. 

It was a needless reminder. )

 

 

 

It’s not the next day, or the day after, or even the day after that. 

Jenny waits to bridge he distance until the weekend, until she has clarity and distance and her head on straight. She takes a chance, picks up a six-pack of his favorite beer, dinner from his favorite restaurant, and goes to him because it’s Saturday night, he probably hasn’t slept in days, and he is more than likely trying to work through it all, burying himself in whatever case he hasn’t been able to figure out yet. 

They’ve always been alike in that regard: the function best when they stick to what they know. 

Jenny may not have a memory like his, but she still knows him, can rattle off his routines like a bad habit. When he slides the door open, the _hey_ stumbles awkwardly out of his mouth. Too easily, she lists of the emotions before they even manage to flicker across his face. The surprise is first, the regret second, the happiness last. 

It cuts deeper than she would like – being here, seeing him, remembering how he left her long before that day on the street. 

But they were friends before they were ever anything else, and that means something to her, always has. So the smile turns softly at the corners of her mouth when he opens her door wider to allow her in, and if she breathes a sight of sheer relief when she realizes he’s alone, she doesn’t allow it to show. They go from awkward to easy in five minutes flat, and it hurts a little too much, the reminder of what was and what will never be again, but Jenny moves around it, tries to be supportive and ask about Rachel. She isn’t prepared for what she hears. Jenny can’t really explain why it affects her the way it does, why she is both simultaneously angered and relieved that he isn’t with the person he left her for, the person he betrayed her trust for. Like so many other things between them now, it just _is._

“I should have been there,” she tells him quietly. Her fingers fold against his shoulder. “I should have called. I should have been there for you _and_ for her. It wasn’t right and I’m sorry for it. But you should have called me. I deserved to find out from you, not from the goddamn obit pages.”

Mike shrugs, dangles the beer bottle between his fingers. “I know,” he breathes. Jenny doesn’t quite believe him. 

Still, her fingers are at his shoulder, lingering. 

 

 

 

Eventually, he finds himself asking, “How do you do this? How did you know this is exactly what I needed?” 

The beer bottles are collecting on the coffee table before them, and the tension subsides briefly to a lightness, to the boy she remembers meeting in a bar all those years before. 

“You forget,” she says. “I knew you once.” 

The words come out harder than she intends, and it sets him on edge – she can tell by the squaring of his shoulders, the way he angles his jaw. She regrets it immediately, feels him begin to slip away from her all over again. 

The sharp inhale is customary. Jenny feels it before it even leaves his mouth. “Is that a threat?” 

“No.” She shakes her head; the laughter bubbling near the back of her throat is mirthless, resigned. “But the fact that you read it that way speaks volumes as to how much I don’t know about you – not anymore.”

Mike’s shoulders fall, and his fingers drop, grazing her knee. It’s his version of an apology. 

Jenny barely remembers to move away. 

 

 

 

Jenny doesn’t wish for before, not exactly. 

What she does wish for is the requiem of the uncomplicated, for the time when things weren’t so fucked up between them, for that short span of moments the distance between him and her wasn’t so vast and endless, and the promise of _maybe_ , of _someday_ lingered at every turn. 

Then, of course, she remembers – that was never their reality.

 

 

 

In the end, Mike kisses her soft and slow, his fingers pressing into the curve of her jaw. She immediately misses the promise he used to offer her before, back when they were different people who wanted the same things, and she licks at the bit of beer on his tongue to cover it, to fuel her into action. She uses the alcohol as a reminder that _he_ kissed _her_ , so tomorrow she can write this off as yet another foolish thing she endured and survived. 

Still, Jenny kisses him back and it negates everything, all of the carefully crafted lies she’s already convincing herself having no merit whatsoever the moment her mouth starts to move underneath his. 

He spreads her out over his worn sheets, his fingers smooth, gentle, kind as they work over her, tracing skin and muscle and bones from memory. She doesn’t want to like it, doesn’t want to feel the way she used to – whole, happy, _in love_ – but she does, is too easily persuaded, and she responds in kind. Jenny allows him to coax her into forgetting with his lips and hands and the words his mouth no longer murmur but his actions still do. 

When he slides between her legs, the weight of him around her is so familiar it hurts. She closes her eyes and kisses him with her teeth, the taste of him sticking to the roof her mouth. He fucks her slow and hard, gives her what she wants and needs without her having to ask for it. Jenny returns the favor – arches her back, slides her legs around his waist, sinks her teeth into the spot on his shoulder were the nerves meet and hates how she knows these things, hates even more how he knows _her._

They’re almost soundless, marking each other with their teeth and the words they no longer have a right to say to each other. 

The _jenny, jenny, jenny_ echoes and falls, ripping into her. She aches. 

 

 

 

There are things she wishes she could forget, the minute details she picked up over the years that mean nothing by themselves but gather and intermingle to create a vast array of information she has use for no longer. 

What she wishes she could remember more easily is this: it was always him, even in the beginning. Trevor was merely a prologue, a means of getting from A to B, and it makes her awful, sure, but it also means that she is no better than Mike. 

It means this thing, their time together, was doomed from the start. 

It’s easier for her when she thinks of it this way. 

 

 

 

After, she throws on his shirt and goes to sit by the open window. 

Jenny has the cigarette she’s been keeping in the bottom of her purse for years before she can think of it, the one she carries with her as a reminder of all the things she’s overcome. The filter is crinkled, both worn and stale. She twirls it between her fingers, laughs a little at nothing in particular, and feels the exhaustion dig into her muscles. 

“I can’t believe you fucked things up with Rachel,” she laughs before she can stop herself, and reaches for the discarded lighter just to the left – right where she knows he keeps it _just in case._

Her fingers shake as she lights the cigarette, as she pulls it to her mouth and takes a slow, thick drag. It takes something away from her, and she watches the smoke swirl before her before dissipating into thin air. The nicotine tastes sweet in her mouth and she had forgotten how much she liked it once upon a time. 

Mike’s sigh is tired as he asks, “What do you want from me, Jenny?” 

The smile she offers is sad and brittle near the edges. She thinks about it for a moment before answering softly, “I just want us to stop hurting each other.” 

They’re quiet for a long time. 

 

 

 

In the cab ride back across town, she smells smoke and his cologne, _them_ every time she breathes. 

She tries not to miss him anymore.


End file.
